MARFA — So tequila didn’t seduce you, and mezcal has never been a friend. This holiday season, try sotol, a distilled spirit made from Dasylirion texanum, a shrub blooming in the vast Chihuahua desert, crisscrossing into far West Texas.
Just don’t refer to it as a Texas drink. And if you do, be careful about calling it “sotol.”
“Gringos already stole our land, copied our food, even Día de Los Muertos, and now they want to take our sotol?” asked Sandro Canovas, a fiery defender of one of Mexico’s wondrous desert spirits, which in recent years has become popular in bars throughout the Southwest.
Canovas said he is on a crusade to protect Mexico against the “onslaught of culture appropriation” by its northern neighbors.
He’s demanding Texas adhere to Mexico’s rules and calls on his own countrymen to scale back on what he calls “illegal extractions,” a tough task with the likes of Grammy Award-winner Lenny Kravitz swooping into the market last year with his own sotol label, Nocheluna Sotol, selling for more than $70 per bottle.
“This fight is about the protection of the cultural matrimony on both sides of the border,” Canovas said.
Denomination of origin
Sotol is a spirit with botanical, mineral and earthy notes similar to mezcal. In 2002, sotol was granted a denomination of origin, known simply as DO, by the Mexican government.
The DO from Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial mandates that sotol can only be produced in the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila, which border Texas, and neighboring Durango.
Still, the question of who has the right to make sotol is complicated, Canovas’ supporters and detractors say. For starters, plants know no borders. They spread across the vast Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas into New Mexico and Arizona. Marfa is part of the Chihuahuan Desert and was once part of Mexico.
A block from his adobe home lies Canovas’ nemesis, Marfa Spirit Co., the focus of much of Canovas’ rage.
The company initially called its brand Texas Sotol, with the backing of key Mexican master sotolero Jacobo Jacquez of Chihuahua-based Sotol Don Celso.
Morgan Weber, co-founder of the company, has since changed the name of the brand to Cibolo Creek Ranch. The product is still described on bottles as “spirits distilled from 100% sotol,” something that continues to anger some sotoleros.
“I think the question is not black or white, and the subject is very complicated and nuanced because of differing opinions of sotol producers in Mexico,” Weber said. He explained conversations are ongoing with Chihuahua sotol regulatory officials to resolve the matter and redefine what states should be part of the denomination of origin. Those areas could include Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas.
For now, Weber said, Marfa Spirit Co. deserves credit for boosting the economy on both sides of the border, including with new jobs.
Weber said his company has helped the popularity of sotol throughout Texas, promoting the spirit throughout its vast network of bars, including Dallas’ Las Almas Rotas, considered home to one of the most progressive and curated agave spirits selection in the state of Texas.
Drinking sotol, said Shad Kvetko, co-owner of Las Almas Rotas, is “like drinking the desert. I love it,” though, he added, sotol remains a “relative niche beverage.”
“I know there’s a lot of people betting on sotol being the next best thing, but at this point I’m a little dubious as to whether that’s going to pan out or not,” said Kvetko, who travels frequently to the different regions of Mexico where agave spirits and sotol are grown and produced.
“Besides, the politics just don’t help,” he said. “In my personal opinion, there’s a denomination of origin in Mexico for it, and people should respect it.”
The issue has grown in controversy since 2020, when President Donald Trump replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Initial drafts of the updated trade deal included U.S. recognition of sotol’s DO. Sen. John Cornyn, however, intervened, threatening to delay congressional approval of the deal unless protections for Mexican sotol were removed, leaving the issue unresolved and igniting a war of words.
Protection of blue agave plants
Denomination of origin protects blue agave plants that produce tequila, limiting production to certain municipalities in a handful of Mexican states. The measure is common practice in other countries. For instance, international rules dictate Scotch whiskey must be made in Scotland, and Champagne must be produced in the Champagne region of France.
At a recent conference in Marfa, Gary Nabhan, co-author of Agave Spirits, urged sotol makers to “fiercely defend” the denomination of origin and called on sotoleros not to allow for the “tequilization” of sotol. Nabhan was referring, in part, to the overproduction of agave plants.
“We’re at a turning point with how these industries go,” he said.
Mexican spirits have generated “greed” within an industry that vacillates between agave shortage and surplus because of a lack of proper planning on the part of the industry.
Even Mexican criminal organizations have gotten involved, smuggling their own agave from states like Sinaloa, he said. Complicating matters is the entry of Hollywood actors like George Clooney, making the industry even more unpredictable.
“Greed has taken over,” Nabhan said. “I always say if you want to keep tradition [and] originality, don’t get Hollywood actors, or Americans in general, involved. What the heck did George Clooney know about tequila?”
Clooney and partners later sold his company, Casamigos, for about $1 billion.
Sales of tequila and mezcal have soared, with Americans paying more than $13 billion for the two agave spirits, surpassing $12.5 billion for vodka and $12.3 billion for American whiskey, according to a market analysis by IWSR, which tracks beverage trends.
Nabhan called singer Kravitz’s role in sotol “just as crazy” and expressed concerns for over-production.
Sixth-generation sotolero Salvador Derma in Chihuahua agreed.
“If we are not careful, we’ll lose our production,” he said. “We need to stop trying to be famous on social media and be more concerned about tradition, preservation. We have to find balance and not just follow the money.”
As for Texas, Derma added, “they can do whatever they want, just don’t call it sotol.”
Ricardo Pico, co-founder of Sotoleros and a partner in Kravitz’s sotol company, defends the singer and the brand.
“He cares about sotol and is respectful about the tradition. He went to Chihuahua,” Pico said.
Canovas doesn’t buy the argument. “Any way you look at it, it’s cultural appropriation,” he said.
During a recent protest, he stood in front of Marfa Spirit Co. with a shirt that said, “Sotol police.” His voice boomed into a bullhorn, “Texans are culture vultures, thieves. No se vale. Sotol es Mexicano. Punto, bola de ladrones,” he said.
“Americans love our music, our food, our drink,” said Canovas. “Us, and our rules of origin, well, not so much.”
